Nabakalebara: Legends and Reality

GENDER RESERVATION IS THE GREATEST DANGER TO INDIAN DEMOCRACY

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Patriotism has no gender. Concern for fellow beings has no gender. Ability to grasp a public problem has no gender. Ability to speak on issues of public importance has no gender. Debates in public forums have no gender. Parliamentary practices have no gender. Legislation has no gender. Democracy has no gender.

But Indian Parliament is besieged with a Bill that wants the Houses of Representatives to be based on gender.

It is to be noted that ever since we formed our Republic some of the foreign countries, specifically the architects of Baghdad Pact, have always tried to subjugate India. Taking advantage of our gullible voters’ confused support to their planted Gorbachevs, they are now active in driving in deterioration to Indian democracy. The Bill in question that wants to vitiate Indian Parliament with gender reservation is the most dangerous blow from their veiled villainy that makes our democracy punch-drunk like never before. Otherwise collective wisdom would never have allowed the Bill to cross the Rajyasabha.

Denigration of the dignity of the Chair while opposing the Bill by more than half a dozen of State representatives in the Rajyasabha and the Government taking a backtrack in placing it for adoption in the Loksabha is indicative of the fact that the Bill is not at all above controversy.

We have earlier shown on the basis of observations of some of our founding fathers during and beyond debates in the Constituent Assembly as to how our Country is by birth a Country of contradictions. There are a handful of Indians who are beneficiaries of this contradiction and the rest are the victims.

Our Constitution made by the rich on basis of their overwhelming presence in the Constituent Assembly has made India a Country of inequality because of which emancipation for massive majority of Indians has remained a distant dream.

The beneficiaries of inequality, though small in number, have been ruling the country, where the victims, comprising the massive majority, thrive on distress sale of anything they produce and/or possess.

Farmers are distress-selling their paddy, nubile girls are distress-selling their bodies, helpless mothers are distress-selling their babies, electors are distress-selling their votes.

Why the massive majority that such pathetically suffers doesn’t outvote the tormentors? This is because; it is divided into rival groups on basis of reservation.

It is astonishing, but true, that Indians in reserved categories are fighting amongst themselves on sharing job-reservation benefits at the cost of efficiency in administration. This division, as we have discussed on February 28 under the caption ‘How Long Reservation?’ is helping imperialists transforming India into a land of opportunism and with the help of the opportunists, occupying and exploiting Indian markets.

When there is no reprieve from it, the agents of Globalization are now trying to divide the entire Indian population on the issue of gender-reservation in Parliamentary forums.

The Bill in question, claimed as a “historic step forward toward emancipation of Indian womanhood” by the PM on its adoption in the Rajyasabha, is not in reality aimed at emancipation of Indian Women. If that were the real intention, reservation should not have been proposed to be limited to mere 33 percent. Reservation for women should have been proposed to be proportional to their numbers or at least broadly to 5o percent. So emancipation of women is not the purpose of reservation by gender. The purpose is creation of a wedge between men and women in the matter of democracy. It will further weaken democracy.

The agents of globalization are using every possible trick to keep the Country under their grip. One of their tricks is reservation. Reservation doesn’t challenge anybody’s superior position; but it makes the victim of inequality acquiesce into lower position and to ascribe whatsoever benefit comes on the way to the mercy of the architects of reservation. Now this act is designed to affect at least half of India’s population.

Reservation on gender basis will perpetuate reservation on caste basis and reservation being a machination of pampering the deficient against the efficient; our parliamentary forums will have more numbers of deficient persons. In the present environment of politics sans principles, it would be disastrous to our democracy if all beneficiaries of reservation, oblivious of party links, emerge as a class by themselves.

Democracy must be saved from this danger.

On the other hand, we have the experience that politicians have no principle. Lack of political principle and flood of thirst for power has given birth to the most shameless shape of opportunism called coalition politics and contemporary Indian political leaders have no qualms in saying that this is the reality, even though thereby they admit that in the eyes of the people they have no political credibility.

Such fellows, notwithstanding differences in their stands on political economy, have put India to a fresh predicament over the gender reservation Bill. This Bill is a creation of political confusion that the imperialists eager to weaken India have used their yes-men to proceed with.

The political confusion that the Government is bent upon to further push us into, is spelt out in postponement of placing the Bill before the Loksabha. They have no shame in saying that they will place the Bill in the Loksabha after tackling its opponents.

Yes, they have to tackle the opponents of the present Bill, if they will have to pass it in the Loksabha. This is because they cannot change the Bill, as its opponents prefer, after the same is passed in the Rajyasabha. The Bill is a Constitution amendment Bill and after adoption in the Upper House, it has entered into a phase where the Government has no power to tamper with it. So there cannot be any correction from official side on the body of the Bill before it is moved for adoption in the Loksabha. On the other hand, no amendment on it in the Loksabha to suite the Yadavs and Mamata Banerjees and others of their type is permissible as the Bill in its present form has already been passed in the Rajyasabha. In the circumstances, the opponents of the Bill are bound to accept the present form if the Bill will have to be passed in the Loksabha. And it is not possible if they are not tackled.

Is it proper for democracy that a government tackles the opponents of a Bill that aims at infesting Indian Parliament with gender components?

WHY ORISSA, NOT ODISHA?

In these pages, the English spelling of the name of our motherland and mother tongue will remain Orissa and Oriya as before, instead of changing into Odisha and Odia.

Law has changed Orissa and its language Oriya to Odisha and Odia in English respectively. This is a very irresponsible law created by politicians having no knowledge on and devotion to classical uniqueness of Oriya language. When this bad law was on the anvil, we had opposed the proposal through several articles in these pages on grounds shown therein. And, when finally the law was created, we took it as an act of stupids. We stick to our observation and vow not to honor the bad law, come what may. For us, the classical uniqueness of our mother tongue Oriya is more important than the law enacted to change it. So, here we shall continue to use the words Orissa and Oriya notwithstanding enforcement of the law that has wrongfully changed them to Odisha and Odia. This is why this site will continue as orissamatters.com instead of converting into odishamatters.com on the strength of our devotion to the mother tongue which no law can change.
-Editor